“Hail the University of Ghana, the nation’s hope and glory…”
Does this sound familiar to you? It should, those are the first two lines of the University of Ghana’s anthem. It states that we are the nations hope and glory. But wait, are we? Well, that is for us to answer.
Let’s start with a flashback into our high school days. Yes! Junior and senior high school days. Those days we used to vote for our prefects to serve in keenly contested elections. You need no reminding of the manifesto readings (most times fun) and campaigns that marked those elections.
What I’m interested in about leadership in our high hchool days is whether or not in J.H.S and S.H.S we were casting our votes based on tribal, partisan and religious lines. I am interested in knowing whether competency and objectivity was substituted for ‘he is from here and he is from there,’ during elections. The answer from me is a big NO!, we looked at who was good and convinced us more, and voted for them- regardless of their surnames or faces.
We progressed from high school into the university- the premiere university, with a better understanding of societal problems and an urge to make things better.
Today, we are hailed as the future leaders, the torch bearers of society, the enlightened ones and the like. Unfortunately, some of us still play by rules that even primary and high school students would not play by. Maybe you don’t understand what this means, let’s look at these scenarios: you qualify well for a job and yet you are not picked because you’re not from the manager or director’s tribe; you deserve that promotion at the workplace and it’s given to another person based on partisan grounds; you know you are the best candidate for a management or an administrative position only to be disappointed because you are not from the same faith or church like the appointer. How would anyone feel under any of these circumstances? Good?
What if may be that is the same habit we are portraying in selecting student leaders? May be the same people who will condemn such acts if it happened to them are the very people perpetuating similar actions here on campus.
Sometimes we get to know that a candidate is best for a particular office, but our tribe, party, friends and other trivialities rob us of the ability to go for the person, how poor and disappointing of an intellectual community!
Well, it is said that you never know how it feels until it us done to you. It is important that we begin to set the standards right from the onset. A better society starts from you and I. What we practise here on this land is what we go to the outside world to do.
There is a famous quote from the greatest book on earth that says “Do unto others what you want others to do to you”, the same Book says “…whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap.” I just hope we are sowing the right seeds now. If this University is truly an academic discourse community, then competency, commitment, qualities and policies should be the yardstick for selecting our student leaders. We need to close the chapter on the “Makola women politics” and turn to the chapter where fairness, objectivity and critical thinking guide us to scrutinize issues and select our student leaders. If I am not wrong, UG students leadership is about students’ interest and who can promote it.
And if we know the right thing but refuse to do it, at least let’s not forget we are university students. Posterity will judge us all.
